To study conscious
experience we must, to some extent, trust introspective reports; yet
introspective reports often do not merit our trust.A century ago, E.B. Titchener advocated extensive
introspective training as a means to resolve this difficulty, describing many of
the training techniques in his four volume laboratory manual of 1901-1905.This paper explores Titchener’s laboratory manual with an eye to
general questions about the prospects of introspective training for contemporary
consciousness studies.Particular issues that are treated in some detail include:
introspective knowledge of the combination tones that arise when a musical
interval is played; the “flight of colors” in the afterimage of a field of
bright, broad spectrum light; and the possibility of non-obvious visual
illusions.